Amelia Bullmore

Plays by Amelia Bullmore

Aged 18, three women join forces. Life is fun. Living is intense. Together they feel unassailable. Di and Viv and Rose charts the steady but sometimes chaotic progression of these three women's lives and their ultimately enduring bonds. The varied journeys of their lives take their toll on the characters, forcing them apart and stretching their relationships with each other to a near breaking point.

Crackling with wisdom and wit, Di and Viv and Rose is a humorous and thoughtful exploration of friendship's impact on life and life's impact on friendship.

Described by Michael Billington of the Guardian as 'impossible not to like', Di and Viv and Rose premiered in the Hampstead Theatre's downstairs space in 2011, before a revival in its main theatre in 2013.

Jane and Kev don't have secrets, there's no room for them. Their children take up all the space. Dirty laundry and weekend guests just have to be squeezed in. But when Kev comes home from a business trip with something on his mind, he starts a confessional chain reaction which has shattering consequences.

Describing the play in the Guardian, Michael Billington wrote 'Bullmore starts by showing a harassed mum, Jane, coping with two demanding children; what makes it funny is that the kids are played by stamping, shouting, rampaging adults. Jane's world is blown apart when her husband, Kev, returns from one of his business trips as a building safety inspector to announce that he's smitten with a member of his team. And right in the midst of domestic crisis, in comes Kev's oldest chum, Phil, a bachelor Scot whose relationship with a doolally handbag designer, Lorna, seems to possess the jazzy fervour hard to sustain in a 12-year-old marriage. We have been here before, but Bullmore refreshes a stock situation by her sharp eye and ear for the oddities of human behaviour.'

Mammals was first performed at the Bush Theatre, London, on 6 April 2005, in a production starring Niamh Cusack and directed by Anna Mackmin.

Amelia Bullmore studied Drama at Manchester University. Having started out as an actress, she began writing in 1995 and continues to do both. Her first stage play, Mammals, had an extended sell-out run at the Bush Theatre in April 2005 and a successful national tour in 2006. It was also co-winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and shortlisted for the What's On Best New Comedy Award. Bullmore's second play was an adaptation of Ibsen's Ghosts, premiering at the Bush Theatre in 2009. She wrote two episodes of the second series of This Life for World/BBC2, and devised the series Black Cab for World/BBC2, writing three of the episodes. Bullmore wrote two episodes of the first series of Attachments, also for World/BBC2. She was a Dennis Potter Award Finalist in 2000 for her original 90-minute drama, The Middle (owned by Compulsive Viewing/BBC).